I had the pleasure of teaching Lenny Bolton, owner of Venom Tactical, and creator of a full line of custom sniper rifles referenced by serpent names. Lenny attended a week long sniper course with Mark Flinn, an old shooting buddy and long time friend. Mark & Lenny had identical Cottonmouth sniper rifles as Lenny had built these snakes exactly the same for the two buddies to test during the sniper course. The only difference between the two shooter’s equipment was their bullet weight. Lenny was shooting HSM 175gr .308 and Mark utilizing Federal Gold Match 168gr .308 in their sniper rifles. These shooters were using completely different brands and grains of ammunition, but both held the exact same DOPE out to 1375yds. The DOPE developed over the weeklong course of shooting, resulted without the use of a holdover, was 60 MOA dialed with a 20 inch barrel at 1200yds. Typically, a Remington 700 with a 24inch barrel develops DOPE averaging 75 MOA at this distance, and only if you have that extra elevation on the top end to dial without hitting mechanical limits of the scope.

The ability to shoot that distance without a use of a holdover and keep the center crosshair on target is an additional asset the Cottonmouth brings to the table. A technical facet and original design built into the Cottonmouth is a proprietary procedure in which the barrel and action are threaded and coupled with a huge amount of torque that would destroy a standard barreled action. This also eliminates the cold bore shots, making they a thing of the past. Most shooters would laugh at the prospect of identical rifles shooting the same DOPE with different ammunition, but this is indeed the case with these Venom Tactical custom sniper rifles. This can only be explained by the amazing quality and precision machining built into the hand-made rifles from Venom Tactical, thanks to the skills of Lenny Bolton.

Having personally witnessed and preformed these actions with the Cottonmouth makes me a true believer that there are still some rifle builders out there who continue to focus on attention to detail, and quality craftsmanship.

Rob Pettorsson

Scout/Sniper USMC

Chief Instructor - Sniper Innovations

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Pack supported prone is much like shooting off a bi-pod or other supporting structures. Your body is as flat as possible on the ground, lined up straight behind the rifle and the shooter should be able to relax his body so none of his muscles are tensioned. The pack itself makes for a great support for the rifle. It can be moved around, adjusted into almost any position, dented in the middle or bunched up to adjust for elevation or windage. Not enough time to pull down the bi-pods, just throw your pack down and use it for the rifle support.

Most packs have some type of camo printed on them and can aid in concealing the shooter as he lays behind it. The pack is easy to adjust, provides some distortion of the shooter profile and has all your gear right in front of you for easy access to individual equipment needs.

A video presentation of the pack supported prone is available on ATAC TV.

Lenny and Tom explain the fine details of the position in the attached video linked below. Watch the video and try the position at your next firearms training session on the range. It works great and gives you an alternative position.

Watch Now:  Pack Supported Sniper Rifle Training

Atac Tv is a free source for Raw, Unscripted Firearm Training.  Seven days a week, 24 hours a day, it’s Free!

This is the final stage of the Sequence of Shooting. You should have reviewed the first four parts and are ready to deliver the shot on target.

Part 5 of the Sequence of shooting discusses Follow Through. This is where many shooters commonly mess up a perfect shooting sequence. Follow through is what is performed after the trigger is pressed. We have to understand that the bullet is sitting happily atop the cartridge, in the chamber of the rifle at the moment the trigger is pressed. When the trigger breaks the sear disengages the firing pin. Spring tension propels the firing pin forward overcoming the inertial weight of the pin. The firing pin hits the primer of the cartridge and the primer ignites the powder charge. Expansion of gases takes place. When the pressure inside the cartridge overcomes the interference fit between the cartridge neck and the bullet, the bullet starts its journey down the barrel of the rifle. This is referred to as internal ballistics. We have to remember the bullet is being accelerated from a standing start.

Although this all seems to happen in a short period of time, there is still plenty of time to screw up this process by the upsetting the shooting platform before the bullet leaves the barrel. Flinching is one of the main causes of poor follow through. Plenty of dry practice is just what the doctor orders to insure perfect follow through. It is essential with precision shooting to be able to call the shot each and every time the trigger is pressed. This means calling out the precise location of the rifles cope cross hairs at the moment the trigger is pressed. Telling your spotter where the cross hair was the moment the shot broke allows him to give you corrections to the target. This is discussed in another program called Shooter/Spotter Communications. Watch the video below as Tom and Lenny express the importance of combining all the elements in the Sequence of Shooting to improve your skills with your sniper rifle.

Watch Now: Sequence Of Shooting Part 5 of 5 Follow Through

Atac Tv is a free source for Raw, Unscripted Firearm Training.  Seven days a week, 24 hours a day, it’s Free!

Trigger control is a very important component in the sequence of shooting for the sniper rifle. This is a five part series; make sure you understand the first 3 parts of the Sequence of Shooting with optics before you continue on with Part 4, Trigger Control.

Assuming your D.O.P.E (Data On Personal Equipment) is correct and your wind calls are accurate, most misses can be attributed to poor trigger control. Although trigger control is very important with any weapon platform, it has greater relevance when shooting at long range. An example of this: A sheet of standard writing paper is .003 thousandths of an inch. Upset the rifles bore axis .003 at the rifle will affect the point of impact .300 thousandths at 100 yards and 3 inches at 1000 yards.

At the moment that the decision has been made to start the trigger press, ideally breathing should be at the empty lung pause of our regular breathing cycle and our ocular focus should be on the cross hairs of the rifle scope. These are discussed in previous installments of the sequence of shooting. Pressure on the trigger should be ever increasing until the trigger breaks smoothly without weapon upset. Rifle set-up should allow the trigger finger to apply pressure centered on the trigger with the middle of the pad of skin covering the distal phalanges of the index finger. The trigger should be held to the rear disengaged position momentarily after firing. This is much like the top of a golf swing after hitting a golf ball.

This brings you to the beginning of Follow Through, discussed in a Part 5 segment.

A video presentation of this segment is available at ATAC TV. Watch the video with Lenny and Tom to pick up fine details of this incredibly important part of the Sequence of Shooting with optics.

Watch Now: Sequence Of Shooting Part 4 of 5 Trigger Control

Atac Tv is a free source for Raw, Unscripted Firearm Training.  Seven days a week, 24 hours a day, it’s Free!

We MUST discuss the simple issue that breathing creates when making a sniper rifle shot that is WAY out there. Breathing has an enormous effect on the accuracy of your shots. Our thoracic cavity expands and contracts as we breathe in and out. Over the years of our life we become well practiced at this procedure, so much so we do it without much thought. This is going to have to change when we want to make that long range shot. Our breathing cycle will cause the cross hairs of our scope reticle to move vertically, possibly moving the cross hairs completely off the target. This movement causes vertical stringing. (Bullet group strung vertically on target)

We have to learn to control our breathing cycle, if you expect to make the hit. There have been many theories on this, and we should look at three primary methods.

• Lungs Full: Some experts say you should hold your breath with lungs full. This method induces muscle tension in the body.
• Half Lung Method: Do you know exactly where 50% of your lung capacity is every time?
• Empty Lungs: Normal respiratory pause
  

The empty lung method as this is pretty easy to reproduce and if you study your own breathing cycle you will soon realize you have a normal empty lung respiratory pause. Try it yourself; feel the pause after you exhale, just before you start to inhale again? This would be a GREAT time to get a clean trigger break. This will also allow for the lowest possible body position when lying in the prone position enhancing stability.

In a perfect world at the range, or when your target is unaware of your presence this works well. Some advocate deep breathing before this final pause in respiration to increase your oxygen supply. The brain and eye performance suffer after around 4 seconds of diminished oxygen. If you have not taken your shot after around 4 seconds, start your breathing cycle again and reset.

OK, what do we do if we are faced with a limited exposure target? We cannot expect the target to expose itself to coincide with our breathing cycle and there may not be enough time to exhale to our preferred empty lung respiratory pause. You must be able to stop breathing and take the best shot available at the time. You may not get a second chance.

Practice both methods with Dry Practice and Live fire. Although breathing comes so easy, it is one of the most difficult things to master, but you must, if you want to make the hit at long distance.

A video presentation of this part of the sequence of shooting is available at ATAC TV. Tom Clarke and Lenny Bolton with ATAC TV discuss how important breathing is to the accuracy of your shots.

Watch Video Now: Sequence of Shooting Part 3 Breathing

AtacTv.com is a free source for Raw, Unscripted Firearm Training.  Seven days a week, 24 hours a day, it’s Free!

Using a scope differs from iron sights in the way you line up your sights on a target. Iron sights require the top of the front sight post level with the top of the rear sight, with equal light passing on the left and right side of the front sight looking through the rear sight notch. This is the procedure to align standard irons and once aligned, it is called sight alignment. Optics or scopes do not require alignment of two different objects to achieve sight alignment.

A big advantage of optics such as Red dots or standard scopes is they have a single point of reference to align the sight with a target. There are many different types of sight reticles including fine cross hair, posts, duplex cross hair, target dot, circle dot and many more. What matters is that each type of reticle is a single reference, that when mounted on a firearm, can be easily aligned with a target.

Sight Picture by definition is the alignment of the cross hair (or equal) of the scope with the intended target. Once the sight cross hair is aligned with the target, this is called Sight Picture. Many other things influence maintaining the sight or cross hair on the target. Breathing is a prime example of this. Normal breathing while sighted in on a long distance target will cause the cross hair to move vertically up and down as you inhale/exhale, depending on your stability in a shooting position. Since we learned in another program that the perfect time to get a controlled trigger break is on empty lung, make sure the cross hair and the target are aligned while you are in your respiratory pause. Trigger control also can disrupt the sight picture by making the gun go off while jerking or slapping the trigger instead of pressing it smoothly to the rear to achieve a clean break.

A video presentation of this part of the sequence of shooting is available on the ATAC TV firearms channel. Tom and Lenny walk you through the steps required to acquire and maintain sight picture, while explaining other factors that will affect accuracy in long range shooting. Watch the video program linked below for more tips and details about

Watch Video Here:  Sequence of Shooting Part 2 of 5 Sight Picture

ATAC TV is a free source for Raw, Unscripted Firearm Training.  Seven days a week, 24 hours a day, it’s Free!

Tom Clarke and Lenny Bolton on ATAC TV Firearms Channel begin the five part series of the Sequence of Shooting with optics, such as scope mounted sniper rifles. It is assumed that you have properly set up a rifle and scope including eye relief, cheek weld and ocular lens focus before the start of this program. Sight alignment is the first part series of basic marksmanship fundamentals. The sequence of shooting is the foundation of all weapons systems shooting skills.

Sight alignment is the alignment of the cross hairs of the scope with the intended target. Sounds easy, doesn’t it. There are many other external factors that affect the ability to keep the cross hairs of the scope reticle in alignment. Breathing causes the reticle to move up and down in a vertical plane. So, if breathing effects the reticle vertical alignment of the reticle what do we do? We control breathing and make sure the reticle is aligned at a specific point in a breathing cycle. This will be discussed in a later part of the sequence of shooting series. OK, so what else can cause the reticle to shift in a horizontal plane? Body position tension usually is the most common cause of horizontal shift. Make sure your body position is relaxed. Check your position by closing your eyes for 3 seconds and your reticle should not shift, if it does, adjust your position to get your natural point of aim.

This is also the time to make sure you have perfect focus on the target. Adjust the scopes parallax adjustment if so equipped to get a crystal clear target image. Make sure you watch the complete series of the Sequence of Shooting with optics with Lenny and Tom. Understanding the process will help you make that hit at distance. Watch the video program linked below for more details.

Tom Clarke and Lenny Bolton guide you through the first segment of this very important series on the ATAC TV Firearms Channel

Watch Now:  Sequence of Shooting Part 1 of 5:  Sight Alignment

Atac Tv is a free source for Raw, Unscripted Firearm Training.  Seven days a week, 24 hours a day, it’s Free!

• Remington 700 action trued, blueprinted and line bored

• Cerakote finish on barreled action and bottom metal

• Venom Tactical elliptical 4340 chrome moly custom bolt with dovetailed handle

• Venom Tactical over sized bolt knob

• Venom Tactical 52rc pinned precision ground recoil Lug

• Venom Strike firing pin

• Remington Trigger tuned from 2.5 - 3.5 customer specified.

• Brux Venom Tactical spec stainless barrel 18-24″

• Custom Venom Tactical chamber and Spiralok barrel thread.

• Badger Ordinance 20MOA Scope Mount

• Badger Ordinance M5 bottom metal with Accuracy International 5 round detachable magazine

• Manners Composite T-5A Stock Finished in Duracoat

• Decelerator Butt Pad and 1 forward sling stud and 2 flush mount sling sockets installed

• Pillar bedded action using 7075-T6 Pillars and Devocon 10110 epoxy

• Harris BiPod Included

When you’ve got your sights on a new custom precision rifle check out the Venom Tactical Anaconda.

The Venom Diamondback is a lighter weight custom made sniper rifle. The Diamondback is built off a completely blueprinted and trued Remington 700 Receiver. The Venom Tactical Diamondback utilizes our Venom 4340 chrome moly elliptical Bolt and our Venom Tactical custom chambered and Spiralok threaded stainless steel Barrel. The Diamondback is available in .308 and .300WM. Here are the Venom Tactical Diamondback Specs:

• Remington 700 action trued, blueprinted and line bored

• Cerakote finish on barreled action and bottom metal

• Venom Tactical elliptical 4340 chrome moly custom bolt with dovetailed handle

• Venom Tactical over sized bolt knob

• Venom Tactical 52rc pinned precision ground recoil Lug

• Venom Strike firing pin

• Remington Trigger tuned from 2.5 - 3.5 customer specified.

• Brux Venom Tactical spec Stainless Barrel 18-24″

• Custom Venom Tactical chamber and Spiralok barrel thread.

• Badger Ordinance 20MOA scope mount

• Badger Ordinance M4 bottom metal with  5 round internal magazine

• Manners Composite MCS-T Stock Finished in Duracoat

• Decelerator butt pad and 2 forward and 1 rear stud installed

• Pillar bedded action using 7075-T6 pillars and Devocon 10110 epoxy

Check out Venom Tactical for your next custom made sniper rifle.